Just Like Hawaii, With Cacti Thrown In
 Nick Clooney - Cincinnati Post
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If statistics are to be believed, a substantial number of you reading these words have visited Hawaii in your lifetime. On the other hand, a much lower number of you have ever visited the tip of the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico, an area called Los Cabos.
For that reason, let me give the Hawaii veterans a description in these terms: Los Cabos is Hawaii with saguaro cactus, the kind you see in Arizona and New Mexico.
It is beautiful, sun-splashed, there are palm trees, a fine breeze, scores of resort hotels, good food and a bushel of adventures. Recently I described for you a charming town called San Jose del Cabo, just 10 miles from our hotel.
Now, let me tell you about the more famous Cabo San Lucas, a town about 20 miles in the other direction from our digs at the high-class Palmillas.
A housekeeping item or two first, for those of you lucky enough to have a Mexican vacation in your sights. Entry procedures are fairly painless. If you go to a resort area, you will be greeted by sales people lining the walls in little cubicles. All are charming and each will attempt to talk you into attending an "information session" at one or another of the hotels. To entice you, they will offer free dinners or free excursions. The purpose, of course, is to sell you some real estate. Much the same pitch is common in Florida, as many of you know.
After you run that smiling gauntlet, there will be plenty of transportation to your destination.
The peso is pegged at approximately 10 to the dollar these days, which makes it much easier to calculate costs. A 50-peso note is five bucks, 100 pesos is 10 dollars and so on. Our taxi ride to Cabo San Lucas was 280 pesos and took half an hour. When we alighted in the center of town, we knew this was not going to be San Jose. Actually, we knew that on the way in. Prominent box stores were everywhere, and the names were familiar, including Home Depot and Cosco. Dominating the center city is a huge enclosed shopping mall with shops we would see in Cincinnati, or anywhere else.
In fact, Cabo San Lucas could be a miniature L.A. or San Diego. A specialty is night life and the universal language "Girls! Girls! Girls!" signs were ubiquitous.
We knew this part of the world was subject to hurricanes, so we asked one of our taxi drivers, Carlos, if there had been any problems this season.
"Only one," he said, "a small one, early in the year. Not so much wind, but much, much water. You in the states had all those hurricanes in 2005, and it has been like that here in Mexico last year and even worse this year. You know all about that rain and flooding in Tabasco in southern Mexico? And that wasn't even a hurricane, just a tropical storm. We've been lucky with the Pacific storms for many months."
Hurricanes notwithstanding, the building boom here is unexampled. Not just hotels, but individual homes and upscale developments. It is now impossible to even imagine what this area must have looked like 50 years ago, before Los Cabos was "discovered."
Among the great attractions here is whale watching, which rates very high. Nina and I were a month early too early. Leo, who knows everything, said with a smile, "December, Mr. And Mrs. Clooney, that is when the whales begin their run." We couldn't help but wonder what Leo says to people who arrive in December.
Rivaling the whales as an attraction is the nearly complete isolation from global events. If you want news, you are going to have to work at it. You can find CNN International on TV, but it spends a great deal of time on soccer, cricket, business world markets and Pakistan. An off-year election in the United States, for instance in Kentucky and Mississippi, rated not one word. We had to call home for the results of our absentee ballots.
Actually, the news isolation was all to the good as we got into the rhythm of our first actual vacation in many years. Now, only a warm, sunny memory as we get back to work.
Emails sent to Nick at nickclooney@cincypost.com will be forwarded to him via regular mail. Or write him at The Cincinnati Post, 125 E. Court St., Cincinnati, Ohio 45202. |
Vallarta Weddings
Travel & Outdoors | November 2007 
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